--- title: "Facebook Accidentally Boosted Harmful Content Instead of Suppressing It" description: "According to reports obtained by The Verge, Facebook engineers warned of a \"massive ranking failure\" that allowed misinformation to flood people's feeds." date: "2022-04-01" modified: "2022-04-01" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-boosted-harmful-content" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "facebook" - "Meta" - "the digest" --- # Facebook Accidentally Boosted Harmful Content Instead of Suppressing It ![According to reports obtained by The Verge, Facebook engineers warned of a "massive ranking failure" that allowed misinformation to flood people's feeds.]() *\Image: Futurism\* ## Bug Hunt According to internal reports [obtained by *The Verge*](), Facebook engineers warned of a "massive ranking failure" that allowed misinformation to flood users' feeds. Rather than suppressing fake news, the glitch reportedly caused misinformation to be boosted, spiking views by as much as 30 percent worldwide. Even Russian state propaganda made it through, despite being flagged by fact checkers working with the company. The incident underlines how tightly Facebook controls what content gets visibility and what doesn't — and how little understanding the public, or even seemingly company insiders, have of the processes that make it all work in the first place. ## Up Ranked The issue had been around since 2019, but only started being noticeable in October, meaning that potentially harmful content had been ranked higher for at least six months. "We traced the root cause to a software bug and applied needed fixes," Joe Osborne, a spokesperson for Facebook's parent company Meta, told *The Verge,* but argued the bug "has not had any meaningful, long-term impact on our metrics." It's an egregious lapse in competence that should give anybody pause. Despite the many calls on Facebook to shine a light on how it moderates content, the company has held its cards incredibly close to its chest — sometimes to the detriment of its billions of users. **READ MORE:** [A Facebook bug led to increased views of harmful content over six months]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()